I'm actually not into LF... yet. But I'm considering moving there (to 4x5") for my landscape work to be able to work with the view camera, and because it is a cost effective way to get high resolution pictures. I'm not a film romantic though, although I do see a value in film I'd use a Phase One P65+ on a digital tech cam if I could afford it.
Thus my goal is to mess around as little as possible with film, but still get high image quality. The question is if that is possible, or if you simply must go "all in" and get your own dark room, develop yourself etc. If the way of the "lazy film photographer" yields poorer results than from a 35mm DSLR, than there's no reason for me to take the step.
Here's my idea of workflow:
I plan to shoot on reversal film, probably only Fuji Provia, and have a digital print workflow. It is nice to have good looking transparencies but I'd rather use a lower contrast more neutral film like Provia for the transparency rather than Velvia, although I might pull a bit in the saturation slider when post-processing the scan so the end result may look more like Velvia. Anyway, transparencies that I like enough to make it to a print will be drum scanned, at a professional drum scan service.
My guess/hope is that when the print workflow is digital rather than traditional analog, the quality and dynamic range of the drum scan is key and more important to the final result than custom details in film development, that is that a good drum scan can for example bring out post-processable shadow detail that in an analog workflow would have been to dark. In other words, while getting a 100% exact exposure and being a "master developer" may key when you do prints with traditional methods, there's some more slack now in the digital days.
To summarize, what I do myself is buying film sheets, loading in a changing bag/tent, shoot, send film holders to a professional lab, those that I want to print (something like 8 images a year) I send to a drum scan service, then I do dust spotting and post-processing to taste myself and make the print.
Does this hold true, or do you need to develop yourself if you want to make quality prints from film exposures?
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